Gospel of Mark
Study
Week Five
1.
Mark 9.1 “And
Jesus was saying to them, ‘Truly I say to you, there are some of those
who
are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God
after it has come with power.’”
a.
Views on what “seeing the kingdom of God coming
with power” means:
i. Transfiguration
ii. Resurrection
and ascension
iii. Pentecost
iv. Spread
of Christianity
v. Destruction
of Jerusalem
vi. Second
Advent
b.
Perhaps some connection between transfiguration
and one of the other options
·
“The three Evangelists who record the saying (in
varying terms) go on immediately to describe Jesus’ transfiguration, as though
that event bore some relation to the saying (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8; Lk
9:28-36). It cannot be said that
the transfiguration was the event which Jesus said would come within the
lifetime of some of his hearers; one does not normally use such language to
refer to something that is to take place in a week’s time. But the three disciples who witnessed
the transfiguration had a vision of the Son of Man vindicated and glorified;
they saw in graphic anticipation the fulfillment of his words about the
powerful advent of the kingdom of God.”[1]
2.
Mark 9.2-13 Transfiguration
a.
Seeing Jesus “transformed” and full of glory was
meant to encourage Peter, James, and John in light of Jesus’ comments about
suffering
b.
Glory radiating from Jesus (9.3); unlike what
Paul experiences in Acts 9.3 (“a light from heaven flashed around him”)
c.
Second time God the Father speaks of his
“beloved Son”
i. Mark
1.11 Jesus’ baptism; Father blesses Jesus’ baptism and upcoming ministry
ii. Mark
9.7 Father blesses Jesus talk of his impending death and resurrection
d.
They must leave the mountain to go to Jerusalem à the place of suffering
e.
“Sensory overrides”: T. M. Luhrmann (psychological
anthropologist, Stanford)
i. “So
I call these occasional sensory perceptions of the immaterial sensory overrides because they are
moments when perception overrides the material stimulus. They are not experienced as
mis-remembering. They are
experienced as the sensory perception of something external. The judgment is automatic and
basic. That’s why it’s so
startling.”[2]
ii. Alvin
Plantinga (foremost philosopher of religion in N. America)
·
“During my second semester, however, there were two events that
resolved these doubts and ambivalences for me. One gloomy evening (in January,
perhaps) I was returning from dinner, walking past Widenar Library to my fifth
floor room in Thayer Middle (there weren't any elevators, and scholarship boys
occupied the cheaper rooms at the top of the building). It was dark, windy,
raining, nasty. But suddenly it was as if the heavens opened; I heard, so it
seemed, music of overwhelming power and grandeur and sweetness; there was light
of unimaginable splendor and beauty; it seemed I could see into heaven itself;
and I suddenly saw or perhaps felt with great clarity and persuasion and
conviction that the Lord was really there and was all I had thought. The
effects of this experience lingered for a long time; I was still caught up in
arguments about the existence of God, but they often seemed to me merely
academic, of little existential concern, as if one were to argue about whether
there has really been a past, for example, or whether there really were other
people, as opposed to cleverly constructed robots.”[3]
3.
Mark 9.14-29
a.
Similar structure to episode with Syrophoenician
woman
i. Beginning:
man with son who has a demon
ii. End:
man with a son without a demon
iii. Middle:
Discussion about the nature and object of faith
iv. Not
just about “doing good”; Jesus seeks to clarify the man’s perception of who he
is
b.
Observation exercise: what do we learn about
demons from this passage?
i. makes
boy mute and deaf (v. 17, 25)
ii. causes
physical manifestations (v. 18, 20)
iii. controls
the body of the boy (v. 26)
iv. seeks
to kill boy (v. 22)
v. resists
being cast out (v. 18)
vi. there
are levels of evil spirits (v. 29—“this kind”)[4]
vii. spirit
in son from “childhood” (v. 21)
viii.
reacted to the presence of Jesus (v. 20)
ix. seemingly
the spirit causes persistent, ongoing problem (mute) and sporadic problems
(convulsions) (v. 17, 18)
x. Jesus
rebukes and commands the evil spirit (v. 25)
xi. prayer
affects ability to cast out demons (v. 29)
xii. Jesus
calls it a “deaf and mute spirit”
(v. 25)
c.
Need for prayer (v. 29) and yet Jesus didn’t
pray in this situation
i. “The
implication of Jesus’ words are that the disciples had not sufficiently
prepared themselves in prayer for such an event as this.”[5]
ii. Should
motivate us to pray
d.
Reading this passage for contemporary
application for dealing with demons (?)
i. Tod
K. Vogt, “Jesus and the Demons in the Gospel of Mark: Contrasting Secular and
Animistic Interpretations” Journal of
Applied Missiology 7 (1996), n. p. Online: http://www.ovc.edu/missions/jam/markdmon.htm.
1.
Vogt worked among the Fon Christians of Benin,
West Africa and he interviewed various church leaders about how they read
specific narratives in the Gospel of Mark (1.21-28; 5.1-20; 9.14-29) regarding
the demonic.[6]
ii. “They
interpret it practically. There is
a general acceptance of this type of demon possession and this passage gives
them clues as to a proper response.
Fon Christians believe demon possession of this nature is common and
there is little or no temptation to seek larger thematic meanings. They quickly identify with the
possession of the boy and are glad to receive teaching on how best to deal with
this possession.”[7]
e.
Exorcism as a factor in the early church
i. Ramsay
MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire—A.D.
100-400 (Yale University Press, 1984)
1.
“But we have Justin boasting ‘how many persons possessed by
demons, everywhere in the world and in
our own city, have been exorcised by many of our Christian men’; Irenaeus asserting that
‘some people incontestably and truly
drive out demons, so that those very persons often become believers’; Tertullian issuing the
challenge, ‘let a man be produced right
here before your court who, it is clear, is possessed by a demon, and that
spirit, commanded by any Christian at all, will as much confess himself a demon
in truth as, by lying, he will elsewhere profess himself a “god”’; and Cyprian once again
declaring that demons in idols, ‘when they are adjured by us in the name of the
true God, yield forthwith, and confess, and admit they are forced also to leave
the bodies they have invaded; and you may
see them, by our summons and by the workings of hidden majesty, consumed
with flames.’” (p. 27)[8]
2.
“How did ever happen that the church could grow
at such a rate, so as to actually to predominate in occasional little towns or
districts by the turn of the second century and, by the turn of the fourth, to
have attained a population of, let us say, five million?” (p. 32)
3.
“Where, then, could believers make contact with
unbelievers to win them over?
Surely the answer must somehow lie where the Christians themselves
direct our attention—among those endless drivings-out of demons, for one thing. For another, in quite obscure settings
of everyday.” (pp. 36-37)
4.
Next Week: Read Mark 11-13 Jesus in Jerusalem;
controversy and judgment
a.
What do you make of Jesus’ cursing the fig tree
(11.12-14, 20-21)? What happens
between v. 14 and v. 20 that may help explain the cursing of the fig tree? Note: Some Old Testament texts on “figs”—Jeremiah
8.11-13; Micah 7.1; Habakkuk 3.17.
b.
Mark 12.1 Jesus alludes to Isaiah 5.1-7. How is this OT text relevant?
c.
Mark 13: Referring to judgment on Jerusalem in
AD 70 or future second coming of Christ?
Both?
d.
Major theme of Mark 13 (vv. 5 and 37). Any other verses stating this theme?
[3] Alvin Plantinga, “Spiritual
Autobiography” (1992), 7. Online: http://www.calvin.edu/125th/wolterst/p_bio.pdf.
[4]
“…it is difficult not to interpret that Jesus here means a specific kind or
class of demon, the implication being that there are various kinds or classes
of demons.” John Christopher
Thomas, The Devil, Disease and
Deliverance: Origins of Illness in New Testament Thought (New York, NY:
Sheffield Academic, 1998), 157.
[6]
See my essay “The Reformed Tradition and the Miraculous: Some
Reflections.” Online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-reformed-tradition-and-miraculous.html.
[7]
See the case study of exorcisms in Ethiopia: Amsalu Tadesse Geletta, “Case
Study: Demonization and the Practice of Exorcism in the Ethiopian Church”
(2000). Online: http://www.lausanne.org/en/documents/all/nairobi-2000/187-ethiopian-case-study.html.
[8]
See my blog post: “Charismatic Gifts and Church History: Some Comments.” Online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2013/08/charismatic-gifts-and-church-history_9.html.
